Riviera Maya, Mexico

January, 2009

We had a perfect holiday (photos).

It was two weeks of heaven at a resort on Riviera Maya in the Yucatan in Mexico. The resort was laid out on a property the size of a small town, amidst dense jungles and the ocean. The food was terrific and the service, first-rate. Beautifully landscaped gardens surrounded winding corridors and footpaths. Low-rise guest rooms scattered inconspicuously apart. Our suite had a "swim-up" pool in front of it. Jeff wet his feet in there once or twice. He preferred the giant main pool and the beach.

Each morning we woke up to the sound of birds chirping. After showering and dressing at a leisurely pace, we walked to one of the main dining rooms for a drawn out breakfast. Sauntering back to the room to put on bathing suits, and it was time for the beach. Everyday at 11, I joined other players in a game of beach volleyball, hoping that an hour of running in the sand would make it easier to justify my eating so much good food.

Now that I was dead tired, I ran over to join Jeff for a little quiet reading on the beach. From time to time, a waiter came over to take orders for drinks. They made a wonderful fruit punch, my favourite. As I read my book, I kept an eye on the Hobies sailing from the beach out into the ocean. I thought I'd be able to sail the catamaran, but was a little nervous about taking Jeff with me. Maybe next year.

At some point, we rose from our beach chairs and walked over to the restaurant off the beach for a slow lunch. The turquoise water sparkled in the bright hot sun. Iguanas crawled out of their caves to soak in the heat, their little heads turning this way and that. Sometimes we would decide to move to the side of the main pool. More reading. More fruit punch. A swim. Maybe a little nap.

When the air cooled off somewhat in the late afternoon, we changed into our tennis clothes and played tennis. After the game and a quick shower, it was time to put on something respectable and go to dinner. There were seven excellent restaurants severing different styles of cuisine, each one decorated in the most tasteful way. At night, different shows were staged, but too often by then, I was too exhausted to stay up, and only wanted to read and fall asleep.

The next morning, we would do it all over again.

The only disruptions to our routine were the days when we went outside of the resort. Once, we spent half a day in Playa del Carmen. Another time, we hired a driver to take us to Tulum and Coba, two Mayan ruins in the area. Tulum was beautiful but completely swamped with tourists. Coba, being mostly unrestored and physically much larger, was blissfully deserted. We rented two bikes and went from pyramid to ball court to ceremonial hall. I climbed the tallest pyramid, feeling my legs shaking from exhaustion and fear, but the view from the top, of jungles stretching as far as the eye could see, made it all worthwhile. On the way back, we stopped at a "cenote" where I snorkeled in the fresh water running through the caves. Yet another time, I went on a snorkeling trip to Isla Maujeres. While the fish and the reef were wonderful, it was slightly annoying that most of the day was wasted getting to the spot.

So it was with much regret that we left our tropical paradise. I hope it won't be long before we return.

Skellig, by David Almond

This is a kids' book. It's about kids and for kids. The little story contained in the slim volume of under 200 pages (counting the large font and the generous spacing) could have been summed up in one page. However, it is really a poem. A moving poem full of imagination and tenderness. So even though I haven't been a kid for a very long time, I was mesmerized by the story, and will recommend it to anyone of any age.

The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink

I picked up this book because the movie based on it has garnered several film award nominations. But I did it in the wrong order, of course; I should have gone to see the movie first. Once I've read the book, the film adaptation is bound to disappoint.

Since Bernhard Schlink's novel was written in German, I was faced with yet another translated book. The prose was rather dreamy. Was it the author's intention, or was it because the translator was a woman? What else is missing in the translated version? I couldn't get these nagging thoughts out of my mind.

[Spoiler warning!]

In the meantime, the story conjures up a sense of surreality. In fact, which part of the story is even remotely realistic? A deeply felt relationship between a 15-year-old boy and a 36-year-old woman? Someone who would rather be exposed as a heartless murderer of defenceless women than an illiterate? I suppose I am to take things as metaphors and allegories, not as absurdity and contrivance. When I did manage to do that, the novel became absolutely beautiful.

Snowboarding at Blue Mountain

Once a year, I go snowboarding for a week in the mountains somewhere in western US. This winter, with us spending less than a month at home, and many social engagements during that month, my usual week of snowboarding got squeezed out. Seeing that I only had a couple of days to spare, I decided to just go to Blue Mountain up in Collingwood.

Blue Mountain is not what they would call a mountain in Colorado. It is the largest ski resort in Ontario, which only emphasizes the utter state of flatness in Ontario. However, since Intrawest took over a few years ago, Blue Mountain has undergone a transformation which made the hills ski a lot "bigger." A pretty "village", modelled after Swiss and Austrian ski towns, like all those others that Intrawest had built at Whistler and Mt Tremblant, was added at the foot of the main chair lift. The village has three main lodges and many shops and restaurants. It was in one of the lodges that I spent the night.

The two days of riding was actually surprisingly good. It was a treat to stay only steps away from the chair lift. The snow was very good this season because of the many major snow storms. The first day was particularly fine: clear blue skies, brilliant sunshine, and Georgian Bay sparkling down below. Every year, I harbour this fear that I'd forgotten all about how to snowboard. And when I first go down a trail, even a gentle green one, my body needs a few minutes before it remembers how to move. After that, it was relief followed by the sheer joy of coming down the hills.

One annoying thing about Blue Mountain is that, being the biggest fish in a tiny pond, it attracts skiers from all over Ontario and parts of the US. Consequently, one never gets the kind of deserted slopes one enjoys in the Rockies. My second day there was overcast with a few flurries. The crowd thinned noticeably, which made everything much better. I went down just about every trail, even going into the glades a few times. At one point, as I sat in the lift chair alone, my face mask pulled up to keep out the cold wind, I suddenly became aware of the blanket of silence all around me. Three snowboarders were sitting in the chair just ahead of me, their snowboards dangling on an angle, their bodies crouched low. Everything was truly frozen in space. For that brief moment, I felt a surge of that wonderful feeling of solitude. That is the state I crave, and what I love most about snowboarding.

The Ancient Ship, by Zhang Wei

I saw this book at our local Costco. Someone had placed it on top of laundry detergents. The description on the back cover intrigued me. Although I'm fluent in Chinese, over the years, having read no Chinese books, I have left myself at a point where I can no longer absorb literary Chinese writing. My eyes would glaze over "fancy" words and expressions, while my brain registered no meaning. Perhaps, I thought, I could give an English translation a try.

So far, the experiment has been a failure. The main reason is actually an old problem of mine. Due to my lack of imagination, I tend to have a difficult time relating to people with whom I have nothing in common. When I was young, I loved novels about high school students or university life, that was the environment familiar to me. As for stories about the countryside, they might as well have taken place on Jupiter. I thought I had grown out of this limitation, now that I was older and more worldly. Unfortunately, no, I'm as uninterested in peasant life as ever. And The Ancient Ship is all about the countryside.

The second problem is to be expected: too much is lost in the translation. The names, when not in their native Chinese form, are awkward and impossible to remember. The sentences are stiff. The story line seems to jump around in a semi-random fashion. I soldiered on for about a hundred pages, but found myself exhausted. Maybe I'll go back to it later when I'm desperate for reading material...